Liz Paul (K12) in Kyrgyzstan - You Say You Want A Revolution
You Say You Want A Revolution
Money, vodka, weight-lifting equipment, job security: just a few things for which the average Kyrgyz citizen may be tempted to exchange his vote.
The first round of parliamentary elections took place on February 27th. A few weeks before, one of the many local candidates made a “gift” of a gym’s worth of training equipment to our university. At about the same time, the employees of another university in town were on the stump for their Rector who was running for office – just the duty of any loyal employee who wants to keep her job.
Despite a palpable support for opposition candidates, the second and final round of elections on March 13th resulted in a parliament 90% loyal to President Akayev’s party, including his son and daughter who ran in districts where opposition candidates had been prevented from running by recent legislation.
With the added talk that President Akayev was prepared to alter the constitution yet again in order to prolong his stay in office before the upcoming presidential election, the people of Kyrgyzstan, it seemed, had finally had enough. Protests began in southern Jalal-Abad, where people denounced the election results and called for Akayev’s resignation.
I was in the office trying to figure out the next twist in the technological acrobatics I have to go through every time I want to print something (internet café to jump drive, jump drive to computer A, computer A to floppy disc, floppy disc to computer B, computer B to printer) when I heard about the events in Jalal-Abad. Though only three or four hours away, I have yet to visit Jalal-Abad, and the incidents there felt far removed, though my Kyrgyz colleagues’ excitement was obvious.
The next day we learned that protestors had arrived in Osh and were demonstrating in the square around the White House (government building). We were administering a proficiency exam for the English teachers in our department that day and nearly half were missing, as our Rector (former Minister of Education under Akayev) had ordered them to the White House to launch a counter-protest.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, I have to keep my distance from political events like elections and protests and had only a peripheral sense of the opposition that was mounting on the White House square that weekend. It was a holiday weekend – Monday was Norooz, the Kyrgyz New Year – and it was difficult to know how to interpret the tone of anticipation.
But on Norooz the traditional holiday stroll through the White House square was preempted by the protests. The bazaar was completely and eerily abandoned and people lined the streets watching and waiting, for what exactly I knew not.
It was a beautiful day and I walked home through my southeast neighborhood with the spring sun shining over the distant mountains of Tajikistan. The white and pink blooms of apricot trees punctuated the new green of the grass and trees along the river.
Later that night I learned that the protestors had taken Osh’s White House and installed an opposition government as they had in Jalal-Abad. My host family assured me that all of the universities would be closed the next day, but when I arrived at work on Tuesday a considerable number of students, teachers, and administrators were there, milling about not knowing what to do.
People expected the protestors to take over the universities, being government property, and several universities in town had accordingly declared a week’s vacation. But the administrators at my university seemed to be waiting to see what would happen. I was sent home in case the protestors actually came, though none did.
By the end of the day the administrators had finally come to the official decision to leave the university open for the rest of the week. But by the time they did, any students who had been there in the morning had left and most of them had gone to their families’ villages for the week.
So though the university remained triumphantly open, nothing happened there all week until Thursday the 24th, when the Rector, on the advice of the opposition, went to the square and spoke in support of the new opposition government which was, at the same time, taking over the White House in Bishkek.
